So 2013 was onloy five minutes old when I received the first political e-mail of the year! And it was a fundraising solicitation from none other than Howard County's own Ken Ulman, our County Executive who's running for..... something. It might be Governor! Everybody's saying it's gonna be Governor! But no one really wnats to stick their neck out there quite yet.
Kenny U has a goal of raising $20,013 in the first week of 2013. Why do we want to give him our jard-earned cash? He tells us why:
"While the fiscal cliff looms in Washington and our legislators work to get our fiscal house in order in Annapolis, we have demonstrated in Howard County that real leadership translates into:
- The lowest unemployment rate in Maryland
- #1 public school system in Maryland
- Triple-A bond rating for 15 consecutive years
- Being named among the “Top 10 Best Places to Live in America” by CNN/Money Magazine
- Nationally recognized parks designated by Sports Illustrated"
Which I think can be translated into "In Howard County, we're better than ALL you other MFers put together. So suck it!"
So it's the "Excellence of Howard County, brought to Maryland" strategy. I seem to remember some idiot blogger suggesting such a strategy a while back. Can I find where I read that? Oh, that's right. I wrote it here.
A campaign finance reporting deadline looms on January 16 and soon after that, we'll see who of these supposed Gubernatorial candidates can puff out their chest with all the money they raised. Because if Kenny U and others can't keep up with Doug Gansler in terms of fundraising, it's going to be hard for their message to rule the day. And there still remain a bit over 600 days until the 2014 Gubernatorial primary.
Attitude and the way the candidate interacts with average constituents is important too. Constituents want to feel that they have a voice in their government. Ken U. comes across as arrogant and detached when you see him speak to constituents. Doug Gansler comes across as genuine and sincere. The same applies to Lt. Gov. Brown and, even though he has now ruled out running, Peter Franchot. If Ken U. runs, he will not get my vote in the Primary.
Posted by: Corey Andrews | January 03, 2013 at 04:43 PM